I’m Mr. Lonely

The second half of the 70’s saw me eating alone, off campus, on Sunday (cafeteria closed). I tried Roy Rogers, Carl’s Jr., Arby’s, Burger King, McDonald, Jack In the Box and Wendy’s, without the spotlight on me as in Lonely Guy, in which Steve Martin pretended to be a Yelper.

Snow on the ground, in the air. AT&T ad shows an old lady (very much like my mom), walking the Walker, trying to pick up the 2500 beige desk handset that is ringing really loud “Love waits”, the tag line says as we the audience breathed out the suspense. Mom and kid connected, at the comfortable rate of a few bucks a minute long distance calling.

“I am Mr. Lonely” … I took a Greyhound back to N VIrginia to join my larger family. Sister’s family. With (lap xuong and xoi) sausage and sticky rice. But first, “cung’ offering of food and flower to the deceased, so they too could join us (acknowledging the respect they deserve).

All I learned about life I did in my first 18 years (10 of which was escalated war).

Despite of it all, we managed rebuild our meager lives: Tet, ancestor’s memorial (more of them nowadays as I grow older) and weddings. No birthdays, except one for my nephew.

We shared grief, joy, happiness and yes, violent mishaps and misfortune. I wrote about my neighborhood bully, about Cinema Purgatory and about Tet 75 (my last decent one).

As we approach another year away (from homeland), with nostalgia kicking, I wish I could just jump on the Greyhound, connecting through Atlanta from Austin, and arriving at Springfield, VA. All ghosts now except for my guitar brother (17 years my senior) whose latest text was how hard snow was falling on the road there.

Bailey Crossroads. Tyson Corners, Seven Corners and Arlington Blvd. Names that evoke places and faces near and dear to me. My uncle Chuc (the one who scaled over people in his “longest yard” to get over the embassy wall) kept smoking with smoke coming out of the hole in his neck. My aristocrat cousin who finally made it to Dulles Airport from concentration camp, only to get employed right there as a bagman. And how could I leave out cousin V. in MD who was one of the very first few Vietnamese in America who interracially married a Ph D in history.

In “it might be you”, Stephen Bishop sang about “wondering how they met, and what made it last…someone waiting home for me”.

I longed for home, for values lost and for f**k ups (bombing im-precision, or that infamous third-rate burglars) a decade previous that led to my becoming and humming along “I am mr Lonely, I’ve got nobody” while Pennsylvania snow was on the ground, and Special number 1 (Whopper w/out cheese) on the table. No wonder I welcome Campus Crusade (who was on First, while the Mormons, Second).

Scott and Dean (the two with tiny propaganda brochures) opened page by page to lead me down today’s evangelistic equivalent of AI funnel (Y/N): how would you like to go to Heaven, instead of Hell (the wage of sin is death) and down on down. May I finish my milkshake?

What I learned that last until now, I learned them all in my first 18 years growing up in war:

• kids are in the shared responsibility of the whole neighborhood.
• during Tet, we stopped all the “cutting the corner”, the cons and the tit-for-tat. We are after all, looking up and back to our ancestors, our roots and upbringing. Be worthy.
• Once marginalized folks, like the ATT old lady gets “waited on”. Love waits.
• Our long and evolving history manifest itself in dragon myth/music
• Modernity can e.g. the French wait. We went and chose firecrackers and Chinese tradition. My uncle funeral combined the two, with horse carriage and New Orleans style band
• Loyalty trumps all else: clan, class (mostly High School), region and family. Our branding.
• What’s a big deal about individualism, materialism, and even capitalism/communism. We are who we related to in the order we were born. Not “you are what you have” as seen in materialistic and consumeristic West (how many TV sets do you own? what release version?) Oh, you bought eggs by the dozen? We bought two dozen.
• Allowance? what’s that? We don’t do snacks. Just wait until your dad get home.
• Last but not least. Not just the heritage traits inside. The hand-me-down Ao Dai too. See you in those outfits next week at Tet festivals. The Afghan got theirs. We’ve got ours. Vietnam is more than a war, or a will to win. It’s not even a dot on the map to be “bombed back to Stone Age”. It’s a country of proud folks, courageous folks and hopefully, successful ones given time. Heck, when one can look back that far, one can go on through it much further, since “the road to the future runs right through the past”.
• I am doubly a Mr. Lonely, unlike Steve Martin who got Grodin to share a lonely NYC bench. I’ve got Campus Crusade, who pointed the way to Heaven, unaccompanied by other Mr. Lonely….at least, by definition of Common Grace, all got snow that fell on the field of wicked and the righteous. Just like our Tet, when even enemy or frenemy got a pass for 3 whole days.

What I learned, worth sharing and keeping, I learned them all in the first 18 years before arriving to the US. Since then, it’s been a negotiation then a settlement: here, you can take this (meltable part) in exchange for that…until I look in the mirror and no longer recognize the Lonely Guy I once was.

Hahaha, you are what you have, which by all account, demode (no longer fashionable). The adman the sad man: “GE brings good things to life”. Right. Where is GE today, its spokesman (Reagan). When Grodin, the other lonely guy, got talked out of suicide, a stranger immediately took the opened jump spot on the bridge, as if it’s a parking space in NYC.

I am Mr. Lonely…. I’ve got nobody, of my own….uhhhhhhhhhhh Mr. Lonely….